I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

The farm is a base of operations–a stronghold. You can withdraw into yourself there. Solitude for reflection is an essential ingredient in self-development. I think a person has to be withdrawn into himself to gather inspiration so that he is somebody when he comes out again among folks–when he “comes to market’ with himself. He learns that he’s got to be almost wastefully alone.

We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.